WASHINGTON — Setting the stage for upcoming restrictions on coal-fired power plants, the Obama administration is making a concerted effort to cast its energy policy as an economic success that is creating jobs, securing the nation against international upheavals and shifting energy use to cleaner sources.

In a 42-page report released Thursday, the White House argues that significant increases in the domestic production of natural gas and reductions in oil consumption have better positioned the United States to advance its economic and environmental goals.

Few of the report’s conclusions are new, but it includes a detailed analysis of how past reliance on petroleum imports made the U.S. economy especially susceptible to oil price shocks, a vulnerability that White House economists say has been diminished by a reduced U.S. demand for foreign oil.

The report is designed to inoculate the administration against criticism that new Environmental Protection Agency regulations on coal-fired power plants, expected to be unveiled Monday, will increase electricity costs, cost jobs and be a drag on economic growth.

Full details will come Monday, when EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy will formally announce the proposal.

The plan seeks to curb heat-trapping greenhouse gases blamed for global warming. Administration officials say the rules will give states reduction goals, then allow flexibility for how states choose to meet them.

Conservatives and business groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have argued that the reductions in emissions will be too small and the consequences to the economy too large to justify new restrictions.

While the White House economic report does not address those criticisms directly, it says greater domestic energy production, the use of wind and solar power, and the reduction in oil consumption “have had substantial economic and energy security benefits, and they are helping to reduce carbon emissions in the energy sector and thereby tackle the challenge posed by climate change.”

A quarter of the report is devoted to analyzing the economic impact of the United States’ shift from importing more energy than it produced to producing more than it imports. The White House makes the case that the U.S. economy is better protected from high oil prices now than before.

So, if an upheaval occurs in an oil-producing country and sends prices soaring, U.S. consumers would still pay the higher costs at the pump, creating adverse economic reverberations. But because the U.S. is producing more than it imports, a greater portion of that consumer spending would stay in the U.S. and contribute to the economy instead of fleeing overseas. In theory, U.S. drillers would get more money, pay more in taxes and create jobs to find more oil.

That said, the U.S. remains a top oil importer, second only to China, and is the No. 1 consumer of oil.

The White House report offers a lengthy list of Obama energy initiatives, ranging from new vehicle fuel economy standards to electric plants powered by renewable energy sources, that have contributed to less reliance on foreign oil. It also cites energy-efficient building projects and reduced processing time for onshore drilling permits and issuance of new offshore permits.

Yet many of the trends that buttress the administration’s case are attributable to dramatic technological advances that have vastly expanded the extraction of domestic natural gas and oil. The main process, called hydraulic fracturing, has caused a furor within the environmental movement.

Natural gas is cleaner-burning than coal or oil, and the White House has embraced it as a “transitional fuel.”

Xcel beats reduction goals

Xcel Energy on Thursday said it has reduced carbon dioxide emissions companywide by nearly 20 percent since 2005, and by 22 percent in Colorado, beating President Barack Obama’s goal of a 17 percent reduction by 2020.

The company in a release said it expects to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 31 percent companywide and by 35 percent in Colorado by 2020.

In its 10th annual Corporate Resonsibility report, the company said it also has more than doubled its use of renewable resources from 7 percent of the mix in 2004 to 20 percent in 2013. Last year, Xcel said it would add another 1,900 megawatts of wind energy and 170 megawatts of solar energy to its portfolio at prices below fossil-fuel alternatives.

The CO2 reduction was attributed mostly to the switch to renewable energy, but also to fleet moderization and customer energy-efficiency programs.

The report also says Xcel cut emissions of nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide from company-owned power generation by about half since 2005, with more than 60 percent reduction projected by 2020. Nitrogen oxide emissions dropped to 54,115 tons in 2013 from 122,949 in 2005. Sulfur dioxide emissions dropped to 69,436 tons in 2013 from 148,706 in 2005.

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